Fear Factor
by DiscoUnicorn
Summary: Why won't Roxanne stay with Teddy?


**Harry Potter isn't mine!**

"Aren't you going to owl her?"

Teddy Lupin sat on the floor in his front room with a bottle of fire whiskey gripped in one hand and a picture of his wife and daughter in the other. He stared at the little girl for a moment too long and felt that old pain rising in his chest again. He crumpled the picture and tossed it across the room angrily. A pair of beautiful hazel eyes appeared before his face.

"Will you just owl her? It can't be that bad. You're acting like an idiot." Her lips were pink and puffy. Her bright hair, which was really almost the color of copper, framed her face in little curls. She sighed and rested her chin on her knee.

"Do you want me to owl?" Teddy looked at her, hopeful.

"Yes, she's your wife. She may have said some things, but she is your wife." She cleared her throat and rubbed the back of her neck nervously.

"She is my wife, but the girl isn't my daughter." He chugged several gulps of fire whiskey and pressed the bottle against his head. "I mean, I should have known, right? Look at Luke and look at Charlotte."

She swallowed and stood so that she could put some distance between them. Luke was her son. Her little boy. He had just turned four several days before. Why would Victoire do it? How could she treat someone like Teddy so badly? Roxanne blinked and looked up suddenly. "What do you mean?"

"Nobody knew Luke was mine until he turned three. Remember how you called me in a panic because his eye color had gone from hazel to light blue?" Teddy laughed.

The entire situation had humiliated her; she had lied and said the child had belonged to her ex boyfriend, who moved to Austria. Oh, yeh, he was muggle. Roxanne sighed and looked at Teddy. "You make me sick."

"I hate you too. You talked me into going back to a wife that cheated on me after we got remarried. She's run off with the father of her child. How should I feel about that, Roxanne? How many times did I pretend to not see her reading letters from him?"

She frowned. "How many times did she catch us? How many times did she lie on my couch crying because she thought she couldn't have a child? How many times did she catch you staring at another woman?"

Teddy leapt to his feet. "What other woman? Where are these women?" The bottle he held was slammed on the floor. He slowly walked towards her. "You. I've never seen any woman but you. For my twenty-fifth birthday, you didn't push me away when I kissed you in the bathroom. A few months later, you didn't tell me to stop when I shagged you in the bathroom at your apartment while she entertained your date. You didn't tell me to stop when I showed up at your apartment one night. You didn't tell me to stop when I was the first person to hold your son. You never lied to me. Not once! For three years she. . . She told me she was mine."

"Send her an owl." Roxanne gazed at him defiantly. "Tell her to come back."

"Do you want me to do that?" Teddy's hand formed into a fist.

Roxanne pressed her lips together. All of the blame would fall to her shoulders. Everyone in her family would look at her accusingly. The magnitude of the consequences made her overwhelmed. She clutched the back of the couch and pressed her hand against her mouth when bile rose in her throat. She pressed her lips together and swallowed.

"Please. For me, Lupin." She trembled slightly as she stood straight.

His eyelids fluttered closed. "Anything. Anything for you."

She couldn't tell him. No matter how often her heart broke when she saw him with his wife, Roxanne hated the idea of admitting that every new life she wanted to bring into the world had to be part of him. Her hand rested on her lower abdomen as she stared at his back. He belonged with her cousin. He did. Roxanne Weasley belonged alone with her son and unborn child, both of whom belonged to a married man. She felt the room sway. Teddy was standing beside her and moving her to the couch. He belonged with his wife. She shouldn't be there.

Her head hurt. Teddy clutched her hand and stared at her with round eyes. She was asleep in their extra bedroom. Luke, pale with soft, ebony hair and one yellow eye and one green eye, stood beside Teddy staring at her. For a moment, she forgot that she shouldn't have been there. She forgot that her son shouldn't have existed. All she could see, for that moment, was the way Teddy clutched her son's hand. Her lower lip trembled as she sat up and eased out of the bed. She slipped into her shoes and moved around the bed to take her son's hand. They were nearly at the front door when Teddy called out to her.

"Why do you want me to write? Why can't you stay?" He looked helpless and confused.

"I."

Teddy nodded and stared at her. "Why won't you stay with me?"

Roxanne wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The idea of it sent panic shooting up her spine. She opened the door and ushered Luke out before she bothered to turn to him and respond. "I'm not strong enough."


End file.
